Imposter high school student appeals his guilty plea as unlawfully induced

Posted: August 25, 2012 - 2:14pm

ASSOCIATED PRESS

ODESSA, Texas — The man serving prison time after posing as a teenager to play high school basketball in West Texas claims his guilty plea was unlawfully induced and that he should be released because of it.

The Odessa American says 24-year-old Guerdwich Montimere also claims in a federal writ that he would be executed by a Haitian drug dealer if deported.

Montimere received a three-year sentence after pleading guilty last year to three counts of tampering with government records and two counts of sexual assault of a child.

The naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti came to Odessa as a ninth-grader and played high school basketball as 15-year-old Jerry Joseph.

The ruse was exposed when a group of former teammates from Florida spotted Montimere during an AAU tournament in Arkansas.